Unremarkable
by TenyumeKasumi
Summary: This was her? The one who bore the Anchor upon her hand? A young, ignorant Dalish who had meddled in affairs not her own? He had been expecting ... something more.


She looked unremarkable.

Solas stared hard at the elf before him, slumped unconscious and bound to a chair. She was young; he hazarded a guess around her mid-twenties. Narrowly built, even for an elf. Two empty dagger holsters strapped to her back marked her as a hunter, as did the scuffed leather armour typical of a Dalish scout. It was impossible to tell the true shade of her skin, her pallor ashen in the flickering firelight. Ebony black hair, near invisible in the dim lighting, was swept back in a half ponytail, a few escaped locks hanging loose like tapestries about her wan face.

He reached out a hand to her chin with a feather-light touch, probing, her feverish skin burning his. She did not stir. He turned her face upwards, the stray ebony locks falling away to reveal her vallaslin; lines of burnt sienna webbed across her wide forehead, small nose, and cheeks in the likeness of a bare tree. An ancient representation of Mythal, Protector and All-Mother of one's people. The trunk and branches of the tree framed her clenched eyes, the tree's fork pinched by the furrows in between her distinct brows. Her breathing remained steady but ragged. Cold sweat ran down her face and neck, also beginning to drench her back. He frowned. He would have to send for blankets soon, or she would die of pneumonia before the Seeker got her interrogation.

That is, if the Anchor did not kill her first.

He let her head fall back to her chest, matted black locks falling once more to hide the unwitting slave markings from view. Walking around the chair and crouching down, he set his staff on the ground next to him and inspected her bound hands.

As they had told him, her left palm bore an unnatural green mark that pulsed with a chartreuse light to the beat of her heart. His breath stilled, his fingers tracing the irregular trapezoid outline. Magic had done this. _His_ magic had done this. A piece of the Fade branded on the hand of a mortal being. What could this mean? What might be the extent of its properties? Powerful, surely. He doubted Corypheus had intended—

A blast of acid green light blinded him as the Anchor exploded to life with a crackling roar. Blinking away the after images, he scrambled to undo her bindings. She groaned and writhed in the chair, struggling against his hands in a delirious stupor. But the bonds were tight and in her state, she could scarcely move. Maybe even too tight. The rope resisted his prying fingers and abraded the skin on them, unyielding. He swore. Igniting a spark with a snap of his fingers, he drew a flaming forefinger across the knotted rope.

Burnt, frayed fibers fell to the ground in a flutter. Free, the elf twisted and thrashed, raking nails over her Mark as if to strip the flesh from her bones. Snatching up her rope-burned wrists in as firm a grip as he dared, he held them apart and above her head where she couldn't claw herself. She pulled at her new restraints, arching her spine, wrenching at her still-bound legs, but he did not budge, urging her to calm. Her distressed groans grew interspersed with pained whimpering as the Mark's light flashed still brighter, the crackling louder. Before his eyes he saw it grow in size, creeping over her palm as if to swallow up her hand–

With a final crack and flare of green, the Mark subsided, the blinding light receding to a dull glow. But Solas was not fooled. It was not dead, or even sleeping. It waited, biding its time. The elf woman collapsed back into the chair like a marionette with her strings cut, unmoving. Compared to her previous animation, she now looked almost dead, motionless from her unnatural position in the chair save for the shallow rise and fall of her chest. Her hair had been tousled during her struggle, now wilder. If possible, her face appeared even paler than before, the skin drained of all colour, Mythal's vallaslin standing out like veins of blood upon snow. She murmured rapidly under her breath, a quick rasp of something he could not catch before she fell silent again.

He dropped her hands back to her sides before hauling her into an upright position. He would have to act quickly to have any hope of saving her. The Anchor was consuming her, eating her alive, spreading over her body each time the Breach in the sky cracked open ever wider. She had already lost precious time by being locked down here, even more had been squandered before the Seeker was finally convinced to let him help her. He could ill afford to make a mistake now.

He knelt before her again, taking her left hand and folding it in both of his. The Anchor's now deceptively tame glow died as his palm wrapped over hers. Through it all, she did not so much as twitch a finger; it was almost like holding a corpse if it was not for the burn of her fevered skin. He shot a brief look at her face, white as bone despite her blazing temperature. Her lips were almost blue, black locks plastered over sallow cheeks, the brown-red of her vallaslin striking on the frightfully pale skin through dark, damp strands. He returned his attention to her hand, reaching for the Fade with a tendril of thought as he began to weave his spell.

She was just an ordinary, unremarkable, ignorant Dalish girl, but his magic had dragged her into certain doom. He would save her if he could, even if it meant exercising every extent of his power.

* * *

The next time he saw the young elf woman, her eyes were open and it was all he could do to keep from staring straight into their depths.

Large amethyst irises returned his stare with wide-eyed panic, her fear making them rounder. The crystalline violet hue was shot through with complementary shades of purple and dusky pink, giving them a gem-like quality that could rival even the handiwork of the dwarves. The vanishing of the sickly green fade rift, now sealed, allowed them to reflect the natural light of the sun and brightness of the surrounding snow like a multi-faceted jewel. They entranced him, drawing his gaze like a moth to a flame, and he found himself unable to look away. Her sparkling eyes lit up her once-ordinary features, painting them in a fairer light and highlighting the much healthier glow of creamy skin.

Skin that was rapidly flushing a brilliant red across lightly freckled cheeks as those wondrous eyes flickered down to her Marked hand still in his grasp.

He released her and she jerked her hand back like she had been burned, retreating a cautious step, not taking her enchanting eyes off of his.

"What did you do?"

He smiled. " _I_ did nothing. The credit is yours."

'Unremarkable,' indeed.


End file.
